Orson Card - Ruins

It took a while to work his way backward through the paths of the animals, but then Rigg found the right one. They joined hands and in a moment saw the squirrel scampering away.

And on the hill beyond the Wall, there was not a soul to be seen.

Rigg walked toward the Wall and kept walking. He could feel the presence of the Wall, but it was as if from a distance, as if the feelings were happening to somebody else. It didn’t even slow him down. He turned back to face the others. “It’s there, but it’s manageable,” he said.

The first time he had come through a Wall, Umbo had been holding Param’s hand. This time he held Loaf’s. But Rigg knew Param would not feel abandoned. She had taken Olivenko’s hand already. Param had never needed to learn how to hide yearnings she had never felt before, so it was obvious that she was attracted to Olivenko, that she was offering herself to him in the way that came naturally to women who were filled with desire.

It was impossible that Olivenko did not see this. But as they walked toward Rigg into the Wall, he could see no sign in Olivenko of either fending off Param’s attention or encouraging it. Is he blind? Or is he as inexperienced as Param, and doesn’t realize the significance of the way she stays so very close to him, as if to surround herself with every breath that he exhales?

Why do I know these things? thought Rigg.

Because Father taught me to watch people. He taught me how to see.

I don’t need a facemask. I have Father inside my head.

As they walked down the hill, over the stream, and up the broad, grassy, tree-dotted slope on the other side, Umbo watched closely, looking for any sign of the people who would be there seventeen days later to watch the flyer arrive on the hill. It gave him something to do instead of looking at Param holding Olivenko’s hand.

It was no surprise that Umbo didn’t see anybody; he was no pathfinder like Rigg, and wouldn’t see anybody if they didn’t want to be seen. But Rigg would. “Where are they?” asked Umbo.

“Fewer of them,” said Rigg. “Here and there, some of them underground, and not very close. We were noticed when we started through the Wall, and word spread without anybody having to run around passing the news. People stopped what they were doing and went into hiding. No threat to us that I can see.”

“It’s the threat you don’t see,” said Loaf.

“That was definitely not the facemask talking,” said Olivenko. “Unless it’s able to absorb tired old sayings from the military mind.”

Umbo saw that Loaf, who would have taken umbrage before, now merely smiled. “I’m glad to be back with you, too, Olivenko,” said Loaf.

“Silbom’s left butt cheek,” said Umbo. “Has the facemask made you nice ?”

“I was always nice,” said Loaf. “I was just too shy to let it show.”

“One of the locals is moving,” said Rigg. He pointed toward a thick, tall tree perhaps three hundred meters away.

“They can’t get much closer than that,” said Olivenko. “We’re still inside the Wall.”

“Moving toward us?” asked Loaf.

“Climbing the tree,” said Rigg.

“I see now,” said Loaf. “He’s naked.”

Umbo didn’t see anybody. “Isn’t it nice of the facemask to open gaps for your eyes,” said Umbo.

“The facemask didn’t open gaps,” said Loaf.

“And yet I see your eyes,” said Umbo.

“He’s pretty high in the tree now,” said Loaf.

That was a habit of long standing, for Loaf to dodge answering one question by changing the subject.

“Let’s keep moving,” said Rigg. “Nobody else is coming closer.”

They walked on up the slope.

“What you see on my face,” said Loaf, “are eyes. Not my eyes, though I get the use of them.”

“Why did the facemask cover your eyes if it was going to have to grow new ones?” asked Param.

“The facemask dissolved my original eyes,” said Loaf, “and replaced them with better ones. Very sharp. Perfect focus at any distance where there’s anything to focus on.”

Umbo thought of the facemask eating away at Loaf’s eyes and almost retched, then almost cried. There really was no going back now; if Loaf lost the facemask, he’d be blind.

With his sharpened powers of observation, Loaf must have seen Umbo’s physical reaction despite his effort to conceal it. “If I lost the facemask,” said Loaf, “my own eyes would grow back. It’s changed every part of me. My body can regenerate now, just like the facemask can.”

“So if somebody cut off your hand . . .”

“I’d bleed to death, just like anybody else,” said Loaf. “But if you put a tourniquet on my wrist, the stump would heal quickly, and then over the next year or two, I’d get a new hand.”

“Would it be your hand,” asked Umbo. “Or the facemask’s hand?”

“Was that you talking?” asked Loaf in reply, “or a fart left over from breakfast?”

It seemed to be Loaf, and yet it wasn’t Loaf. It was hard for Umbo to put his finger on what was wrong. And then it came clear. Loaf was young . Not world-weary. Quick of step, not lumbering.

The more the facemask remade and improved Loaf’s body and mind, the less like Loaf he would be.

“The question,” said Rigg, “is whether to avoid the man in that tree, or to approach him and make contact.”

“Avoid him,” said Param. “Let him come out in the open if he wants to talk to us.”

“The people we saw coming here seventeen days from now looked cheerful enough,” said Loaf.

“Maybe they already ate us,” said Param, “and they were there to play with their food.”

“They were wearing clothing,” pointed out Rigg. “Why is this one naked as an animal?”

It was pointless to speculate. Umbo took off at a jog for the tree.

“Umbo!” called Rigg.

But Umbo knew what he was doing. If the person was dangerous, then Umbo, as the least useful person in their group, should put himself at risk. They no longer needed him in order to go back in time, and in all their talk about who should be in charge, nobody ever proposed Umbo’s name. Nobody seemed to know what Umbo was needed for now, least of all Umbo himself. So if there were foolish risks to be taken, he should take them.

As Umbo neared the tree, he slowed to a walk. He still couldn’t see the person—only the movement of twigs and branches. The person said no word, made no sound. Umbo would have called out to him, but didn’t know what language the watcher might understand. The Wall put all languages into their minds, but they could not find them, could not tell one from another, until someone else began to speak. Then the appropriate language was simply there .

It turned out that no language was needed at all. When Umbo came quite near the tree, close enough that in two strides he could have touched the three-meter-thick trunk, the watcher flung something out of his lofty perch. It splatted against Umbo’s cheek and shoulder. It stank. It clung.

Umbo reached up a hand to wipe it from his face. It was nightsoil. Presumably the watcher’s own.

Or perhaps not, because here came another wad, this time striking Umbo in the chest.

Umbo’s first impulse was to rush down the hill to the brook, but that would give the wrong impression to the others—that he was running away. They might assume that there was real danger. Instead, Umbo turned and walked out of range. He was able to determine what the watcher’s range was by continuing to walk until fresh fecal wads stopped reaching him.

By now Loaf had run up to him. Of course he had seen everything in perfect detail, and he was laughing. “A fecal greeting!”